Sunday, 10 April 2011

Got Sunburnt Today!

Why is it that when someone lights a fire, the wind is blowing in a direction that carries all the smoke onto my allotment and into my lungs?

Why is it that those that put black plastic on their allotment never make sure that it is flat, there are heavy stones or slabs on it and and that it will not catch the wind? How difficult is that?

How is it possible to spend a whole day on the allotment and only plant two rows of peas?

I think that I got tired today because I am very grumpy now. At the allotment, I watered all the seed and seedlings that I planted yesterday so I am hoping that it will last them until the end of the week without any further intervention.

I went over with the hoe to make sure that I did not miss any weed seedlings. I will have to continue to do this until after May when vegetables will be big enough to shade out weed seedlings.

I have made two changes to the plan - as usual.

I wanted to put a row of rocket in and decided to put it next to the Boltardy rather than wait until I had planted the Woden beetroot. I will plant the Woden later in the month. I was going to plant some of the onions but I really ran out of time. I am not really worried because they are not really big enough to put into the allotment soil.

I will put the courgettes under the climbing French beans. Last year I put the cucumbers under the beans and they did fairly well. Even though they were not the best they still produced more courgettes than I could eat.

There is a suggestion that I could put cloches over the strawberries to bring them along quicker. I could put a cloche over some of them but I rather like having strawberries during Wimbledon week.

The gooseberry could do with a dose of washing soda or pee to prevent American mildew. I am going to go with pee because it seems to be more organic...

I pruned the forsythias today and bagged up the clippings to take to the allotment for composting. They will grow big new flowering stems now.